Tuesday, April 1, 2014

CREEPY CUTE // KAWAII (・㉨・) ♡ ／(･ × ･)＼

In 2010 I discovered Japanese pop-artist, Hikari Shimoda 下田ひかり's
creepy cute/kawaii magical girls and super hero saviors in their neon
pastel surrealistic worlds and blank stares. I was mesmerized by her
artwork and her message. Artist Statement from her Sweet Streets LA artist page:

"HIKARI SHIMODA:

Based in Nagano, Japan, Hikari Shimoda first studied illustration
at the prestigious Kyoto Saga University of Art and Aoyama Juku School
before beginning her career as a contemporary artist in 2008. Soon
afterward, Shimoda was selected for her first solo exhibition at Motto
Gallery in Tokyo, and since then has held exhibitions annually in
galleries worldwide, spanning Japan, the United States, Canada, and
Milano, Italy. Shimoda’s artwork paints a world where cuteness and
horror coexist, and fantasy meets reality. She credits the Japanese pop
culture she grew up with as the main source of inspiration of her
Lowbrow “Irasuto” style, which means artwork made by people inspired by
anime and manga. There are often children putting on heroic costumes
such as Superman and “shojo” or magical girls, an anime sub-genre of
young girls who use magic. Through depicting children especially,
Shimoda reveals the problems people in today’s society struggle with
from within. Children possess a simple existence because their identity
is ambiguous which provides her with an original point of view. In her
“Whereabouts of God” portrait series of other-worldly horned children,
she also comments on Christianity’s anointment of Jesus Christ as savior
of humanity and mirror of our fantasy heroes. These characters not
only represent heroism but an adult desire to watch our children grow
and defend the world we have constructed. With each new piece, Shimoda
advances her search for salvation and her deeper understanding of this
chaotic world."HIKARI SHIMODA OFFICIAL SITE: http://hikarishimoda.com/SWEET STREETS LA GALLERY: http://sweetstreetsla.com/artist/hikari-shimodaMY FACEBOOK COSPLAY PAGE!: LISXXOR cosplay

I've been wanting to cosplay
characters from her paintings for a while now (the Super Hero), but
didn't know when would be the best time. I decided to make these
costumes when Ohaycon announced they were having a special "magical
girl" themed category in their 2014 masquerade. I was even happier to
discover there was a "magical boy" category, which would fit Hikari's
Super Heroes perfectly.

My cosplay versions of the Super Heroes was my way of celebrating her
art through my fashion skills. Like I love these lil guys so much I want
to make them real! Originally I was only going to make the original
blue Bear Boy Super Hero, but fell equally in love with the mischievous
Bunny Boy Super Hero from her more recent series, "Before Worlds Were
Born". Always the ambitions one, I decided to make both Bear and
Bunny Super Hero outfits, since they are essentially color swaps of each
other. But really I ended up making 4 different interchangeable
costumes.I'm glad I did, because I ENDED UP WINNING "BEST MAGICAL BOY" CRAFTSMASHIP in the Ohaycon 2014 Cosplay Masquerade!!!

I won "BEST MAGICAL BOY" CRAFTSMASHIP in the Ohaycon 2014 Cosplay Masquerade!!!

Want to recreate my custom eye makeup look from my Hikari Shimoda Super Hero cosplays? Look no further!
Because
Hikari's characters are childlike and colorful, I wanted my eye makeup
for this cosplay to keep that anime/manga look and really pop! Just like her lovely
paintings. Her children paintings have the most magical starry eyes. I want them! ♡

I chose to go with multi-colored eyes to match her children's mismatched eyes, neon yellow UV and white. Unfortunately they don't sell magical star-filled neon multicolor contacts right now :[ I was able to find heart shaped contacts, but not stars.

Black sclera contact lenses were out of my price range. I'd love to purchase some to go as her more creepier kawaii characters.
For any Hikari look, You could choose any neon or pastel colors contacts to mismatch - from pink, blue, white, light green, purple, even black!

I made a quick cartoon sketch below of my Hikari Shimoda Super Hero makeup in pink and blue using my makeup to show you the general simple shapes.
To get this look:

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Hey guys! I'm back!My blog got a huge makeover!Like the new blog layout? It finally has the aesthetic feel that represents me, my persona, and my brand. Clean, minimal, edgy, bold, with a dash of digital. [CYBERPUNK].Wonder where the quote on my header is from and why it's there?It's the opening sentence to my favorite book, Neuromancer by William Gibson. Seriously, go read it if you haven't already and think of me. My next collection will be based off of it.

Basically I am so proud of myself that I created the graphics and the html code to design this blog the way I wanted from the basic "bleh" blog design it was before ALL ON MY OWN. WOOO!!! Such a learning process. Thank goodness for google and friendly programers with their easy to follow tutorials.

2013 had been a year of growth for me personally and as a designer and budding creative entrepreneur.

The past year I've been teaching myself basic HTML, and other creative entrepreneur necessities like personal finance, excel, social media in marketing, and graphic design (photo retouching, and batch automating tasks!) to compliment my fashion and marketing skill set.

Also since late 2012-2014 I've been focusing on promoting and selling my remixed line, 3xHearts by Lisa Malanij, in the upcycle movement that is growing in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. Collective Upcycle Boutique and the ever popular growing Cleveland Flea have been my sales stalwarts for my remixed line. I hope to open 3xHearts online store as well coming soon! You can learn more about 3xHearts here.

In the mean time, I have tons of backlogged events, photos, outfits, adventures I need to catch up share with you too! While I make progress on catching up and sharing my adventures 2012-2104, feel free to drop me a message!Like me on Facebook the most up to date news news on my Facebook Fanpage.

Friday, July 6, 2012

My inspiration for this outfit was the Cinna’s hair stylist prep
team member, Flavius. (Cinna and his prep team trio are my favorite
characters in the Hunger Games series b/c of their over the top fashions
and Capitol attitudes I can totally relate to being a boldly dressed
fashion designer myself). :]

Flavius is described as tall, wears purple lipstick, and an orange
hair with a large curl in the front. I imagine him to be a bit of a
dramatically well-styled dandy. I also added two tiny heart-shaped
beauty marks by my eye as a throwback to 17th century French
aristocrats. Unfortunately I was unable to find temporary orange hair
dye in time for this contest :[ But my front curl turned out awesome.

Also this is my first time dressing as a dandy menswear inspired. It was fun! <3 I really enjoyed putting together this look :]

Thursday, July 5, 2012

I title this look: EFFIE TRINKET-TASTIC
My inspiration for this outfit was the fabulous, frivoulous, famous Effie Trinket! For this Capitol Look I limited to the clothes I already had in my closet, pulling this monochromatic pink look together using a blazer, party dress, exaggerated pearls, chiffon flower and a lot of magenta.

My inspiration for this outfit was the Cinna’s nail tech prep team
member, Venia. Cinna and his prep team trio are my favorite characters
in the Hunger Games series. Their over the top fashions and Capitol
attitudes I can relate to being a boldly dressed fashion designer
myself.

Venia, being my favorite, is described in the book as tall,
androgynous, having blue hair styled in spikes with gold tattooed
eyebrows. Unfortunately I am not tall or androgynous, but for the sake
of this contest bear with me ;] Also if I had my spiky blue hair still I
would have made my hair it into real spikes, but the wig had to
suffice.

Gold and pale blue were my color scheme for Venia’s outfit. I
imagine she likes over the top accessories, like large triangle earrings
and necklaces to enhance her already sharp style. I wanted originally
to have a pale blue dress or gold maxi skirt but couldn’t find any.
Instead I used this gold silk dupioni dress. I took artistic liberty to
interpret her spikes as cone buns and give her diamond implants above
her eyebrows, which gives this look an Art Deco Molly Soda crossed with
Asuras (Hindu deities) appearance. (HAHA). The silhouette of the outfit
and hair are reminiscent of Maria, the android automaton in Fritz
Lang’s 1927 “Metropolis”.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Who says literature can't inspire fashion? In excitement for the movie premier of the Hunger Games coming out this weekend, I decided to throw together a couple of Hunger Games inspired outfits to show off my new Mocking Jay pin. I might put together some more later this week - wanna try to channel some serious Effie Trinket. This is Variation #1: Down With the CAPITOL! that is featured on my Lookbook.nu page.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

I made my own Lady Gaga Meat dress costume! I debuted it at SPACES gallery's POP ROYALTY benefit costume party.

I've been itching to make a costume based on Lady Gaga's infamous meat
dress. I bought the materials for it last year, but hadn't got around to
creating it. For the wig, I purchased an all white long haired wig,
then spray painted it with turquoise and silver temporary hair spray
paint. For the necklace and bracelets, I glued gems onto leather strips
and turned them into velcro bracelets. As for my "Meat Dress," I made
entirely out of red felt, red jersey knit for the lining, and fabric
paint <3 (I like using knit fabrics for the stretch in costumes -
it's more forgiving on fit than wovens. However if you are more
comfortable with wovens, follow this tuturial but leave 1" to sew in a
side seam or back zipper to get in or out.)

Personally I
loved all the outfits she wore to the 2010 VMAs, she looked gorgeous in
her S/S 2010 Alexander McQueen 1st outfit, and her custom black Armani
couture gown for her 2nd look. Her 3rd look, now known as "the Meat
Dress" left people loving it or disgusted. What draws my attention to
this outfit are the colors: The white/grey and turquoise ombre hair
with the start contrast of the red and white of the meat. I LOVE IT.
Her shoe wraps remind me of chunky platform shoes of the late 90's. Not
to mention she was dripping in jewels. That's what I liked most about
it, the colors...THE COLORS. I loved her Meat Dress 2010 MTV VMAs outfit
so much I even included it as an illustration in my 2011 Sketchbook Project.

Meat
has been used in art as material and fashion photo shoots time and time
again. It was a very Dada-esque thing to do. (Marcel Duchamp, Elsa
Schiaparelli, and Salvador Dali would have approved). Kind of a big
"F*%& You" to the red carpet and PETA.

Meat Gaga" by Lisa Malanij, The Sketchbook Project 2011

In this video of the Pop Royalty party from CoolCleveland.com, you can see myself and my Katy Perry girl friend at :15 sec, and my girls Pam, Laurel, and Carolyn at 1:26 sec.

The Pop Royalty party was a blast. Among many other pop stars running around, I made friends with a girl dressed as Katy Perry (Though she had an awesome blue bob wig that could have totally passed for CFDA Fashion Awards 2011 Gaga). After the party, my friends and I decided to get food at XYZ Tavern in the Detroit Shoreway area. I didn't have a change of clothes, so in my full Gaga ensemble I bravely went to the bars with no shame. HAHA. I am truly a brave soul.

Here are my "red carpet" photos taken at SPACES Gallery during their Pop Royalty event :]